Jane Fonda has stepped forward to support Mark Ruffalo after he was severely bashed over his criticism of the Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
For those unaware, Ruffalo spoke out against the high-stakes Paramount-WBD merger, targeting Oracle founder Larry Ellison, father of Paramount CEO David Ellison, as he labelled him an “oligarch” and mentioned Oracle’s long-standing technology contracts with the Israeli military.
In response, Paramount called his accusations antisemitic, while The Avengers star dismissed the accusations, calling them “appalling and fundamentally dishonest.”
As Ruffalo is receiving wide support from Hollywood, Fonda and her Committee for the First Amendment issued a statement in which they rejected Paramount’s “cynical attempt to falsely label Mark Ruffalo as antisemitic” and “their effort to distract from the issue at hand: the dangerous consolidation of media power” that would come from the acquisition.
The 2x Oscar-winning actress stated, “Mark Ruffalo has a First Amendment right to speak out about politics, powerful corporations and this dangerous merger — full stop.”
“Calling his criticism antisemitic is a smear to delegitimize criticism of the merger and to distract from the question Paramount would rather not answer: should one company be allowed to accumulate this much power over our movies, television and news?”
“The original Committee for the First Amendment was founded to stand against blacklisting and intimidation of people for their political beliefs. We will not stand by while the government or its allies revive those tactics to bully activists into silence today,’ Fonda concluded.
